


there's an angel in my closet

by alternate_me



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bittersweet, Comfort, Dean's daughter, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Guardian Angel Castiel, Hurt Castiel, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Nightmares, Past Character Death, Protective Castiel, Storms, fear of the dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 15:05:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4965514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alternate_me/pseuds/alternate_me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie had always had nightmares. She was used to wake up crying or screaming, surrounded by that frightening darkness. But, since her father had passed away, her dreams had gotten worse, and the dark threatened her more vividly. She would then join her hands in a sign of prayer, just as Dean had taught her to, and she would call for help, she would call for an angel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's an angel in my closet

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I lied. But I must say I'm not proud of that.
> 
> When I posted this story, I said that I would post only fluffy and cute fics for a while. However, as I've also mentioned, I've found some fics which I had written last year but hadn't posted, and this is one of them. And yeah, sorry, it's kind of bittersweet, but I like it a lot.
> 
> I was stuck in it for a while, there were some parts that I simply couldn't get right, but, well, now I think it's good.  
> Hope you enjoy it.

The little girl opened her eyes and met the darkness that surrounded her. The sound of her quick breathing was the only disturbance in the quiet night. She was in her bedroom; she had had a bad dream. Now she looked around, moving only her eyes, not making any noise.

She just listened to the silence. 

_There is nothing here._

But she thought she could see figures moving in the shadows, blowing in her ear, whispering words, reaching out for her feet.

Any minute now. 

The girl remained quiet. She wanted to shout for her mother who was sleeping in the room beside hers, but she didn’t dare breaking that overwhelming silence, that oppressing stillness.

Closing her eyes, the child repeated to herself that it had only been a dream. _Breathe._ But her heart still pounded fast in her chest - the beats too loud in her ears - while an anxiety agitated her stomach and devoured the words which could calm her down, leaving nothing but fear. The figures refused to leave her. They stood by her bed, watching her.

As a last resource, she suddenly joined her hands in a sign of prayer. She closed her eyes once again and frowned as she concentrated on her unspoken words. A silent demand for help.

And while her eyes were still closed she heard the comforting sound of flapping wings. Even with her eyelids closed, she could see when someone turned on the lamp beside her bed. A dim and warm light spread through the room, pushing the shadows and the figures away, to the corner of her mind.

Only then she dared opening her eyes again.

She was not alone with the dark figures anymore, now there was only a man in a trench coat standing beside her bed. His blue eyes were opaque in the faint light. There were some concern on them, some relief, some pain.

***

She was wrapped on her father’s arms. It was night, and she had had a nightmare. She always had nightmares and woke up to dark and frightening rooms. That was not a thing a six year-old should go through.

Dean had come at the first shout, at the first disturbance. He was always there, always making sure everything was okay, as if she was too precious that the world would want to steal her from him, as it had stolen so many before her. 

After all he had seen, it was impossible not getting worried. She was too young to know what her father used to do – and, in Dean’s perspective, she would _always_ be too young for that. He wouldn’t tell her if he didn’t have to. He would lie to her if that meant she would sleep peacefully. _“There are no monsters under your bed”. “There is nothing in the dark”._

In that night, he had his daughter on his arms while a storm hit the roof of their house and lightening pulsed outside. Thunders made the glass of the window shake, creating a humming noise that surrounded them. For Charlie, it should be terrifying, but, for Dean, it was the best thing he could listen to. He felt safe, he had his daughter there with him. It was so different from everything he had faced in his life. For once, it was just the wind, just a storm.

“You don’t need to be afraid, Charlie”

The name made him suddenly remember the girl from whom it had come from. The sister he’d never had. And, as he remembered her sweet smile in the last time he’d seen her alive, he hugged his daughter closer to him. 

He rarely thought of the past now. The only thing he knew was that he wouldn’t die at the age of sixty, killed by a monster and still hunting beside his brother. Things had changed.

Charlie hugged him a little tighter every time there was a lightening, burying her head on his chest. He stroked her hair, calming her down. There was a time when he’d thought he’d never be a good father. He’d worried he wouldn’t adapt to that life, that somehow there would be too much of his old man in himself. 

But once he held his daughter for the first time, just like he was holding her now, it seemed so easy, so _right_. As if that was the reason to why he had lived till that moment: not saving people, not hunting things, but being a father. Raising Charlie, comforting her, saving her from her nightmares, all of his former life seemed so small compared to that.

“Dad, I don’t want you to go away. Ever” Charlie spoke in an urgent voice. 

Her fear was almost gone, and she was starting to feel safe again, but apparently that little concern came to her. What if it changed someday? She didn’t want that. It was all so perfect: that house, her mom and dad, everything. Things like that should never change.

“Hey, I didn’t say I was going anywhere” Dean told her, poking her nose and smiling.

“You promise?”

It took a moment for Dean to answer. It was always hard to answer things like that, because he felt he should tell her that things would change someday, that there were worse things than nightmares, things he wouldn’t be able to save her from.

“Yes, I promise”

It felt wrong lying to her, giving her a false sense of insurance. But sometimes, deep down, he would confess to himself that he wished his father had lied to him. He would wish he had given him something but strict and brute reality. She would learn whether the time came. As it should be.

But there was nothing wrong about giving her a second option – an option for when he was no longer around. He didn’t want to think about that, but he needed to know she would be safe even if he was gone.

“Charlie, look at me” she looked up at him, and her curious green eyes met his “I’ll be here, okay? But if any day you need something I can’t give you, or if I’m not near you, I want you to pray, you’re listening?”

Charlie frowned at the request. All religious subjects she had ever had contact with were the ones her mother had taught her. Her father was not much of a religious man, and she knew it.

“To pray?”

“Yes”

“To God?”

“To angels”

“You believe in angels?” she seemed confused “I’ve never seen you praying”

She wouldn’t have. Even his wife wouldn’t have seen it. But he did, every night. Once you’ve got a habit, it’s difficult to stop, to give away an anchor on which you can rely. 

“I believe in angels, sweetheart. You bet I do” he smiled kindly at her “I promise you, every time you think I can’t help you, all you have to do is to close your eyes and pray”

“To who?”

Dean remained still, as if he was reconsidering what he was doing. But he ended up speaking up.

“An angel. Castiel”

“Castiel?”

“Yes, but you can call him Cas, I’m sure he won’t mind” He smiled softly at her. His eyes suddenly far away.

“And he’ll help me?”

“Yes ” his attention was over her again “Whenever you need it, I’m sure he’ll protect you”

Charlie looked down, as one who knows someone is wrong and doesn’t want to offend them. Dean saw the lack of faith on her eyes. He had been there.

“You trust me?”

“Yes, dad. But I-” she paused “-I pray, mom tells me to, but it doesn’t work. I pray every time I’m scared, but nothing happens”

“This time, it’ll be different”

“It is a prayer like the others?”

“Yes, it is, the difference is whom you’re praying to. This one works. You trust me?”

She looked up at Dean, and he could see he had restored some of her faith. She still had doubts, but he knew that, when the time came, she would do as he’d told her.

“Yes, dad. Always.”

***

Once Castiel saw everything was alright - that it hadn’t been anything of the worst kind, anything her father used to hunt - relief took over him completely. His features relaxed as Charlie had never seen them do. And, when the cold look was gone from his face, she thought she had seen a glimpse of sadness on his eyes, or maybe something closer to being lost. But it was just for one second. In the next moment, the distant look took over him again.

He approached the bed, his steps soft on the carpet. Charlie was certain that her mother wouldn’t listen to that. She was a heavy sleeper. Castiel sat down on the edge of the bed, right beside her.

“Was it a nightmare?” he asked, his voice harsher than it usually was.

“Yes”

Castiel hesitated. His arm moved slightly before he actually lifted it and patted Charlie’s head. It was as if he was unsure of what to do, or uncomfortable with all of that. 

“Was it the same?”

She shook her head.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Castiel had visited Charlie a couple of times, because of a couple of bad dreams. She’d thought that angels were supposed to be kind, but there was this cold thing about that one, as if she couldn’t actually reach out to him. She’d never seen him smiling to calm her down like her father used to do. It was always distant, impersonal comforts.

It didn’t look like Charlie would answer him. But, eventually, she moved uncomfortably under the blankets and spoke up.

“I dreamed of my dad”

And then she looked up, and Dean’s eyes faced Castiel as she lifted her head. She was surprised by noticing the angel’s eyes suddenly looked like they were made of glass under the dim light of the lamp - a moving glass that threatened to fall apart at any second.

She pondered whether she should go on. She wanted to know why that sad look had finally taken over Castiel, why the cold mask had suddenly fallen down. Charlie had wanted it for so long, but now that it had finally happened, she was afraid of carrying on, of saying something that would make that glass on his eyes roll down.

“We were having picnic in the park” she finally said, not having anything else to do “And he was… well, just like he used to be. He smiled at me”

For a moment, Charlie’s and Castiel’s eyes looked down without actually seeing anything – they were lost somewhere in the past. Then Charlie looked up at Castiel again, and it looked like he was waiting for her to say something else. The tears had dried on his eyes, not one had fallen down. 

“That’s a good memory” he finally said, as she wouldn’t say anything “It doesn’t sound like a nightmare”

“Well, it hurts like one”

She had woken up crying, not a lot, just a few tears that had followed her into real life. She had woken up to the darkness that surrounded her, that pried on her. She couldn’t even start describing how much it had hurt, but, somehow, she felt as though she didn’t need to. There was something about Castiel, she didn’t know what it was, but somehow she felt he knew what she was talking about. 

Her mother had stayed with her for uncountable nights after Dean had passed away. And Charlie could still listen to her crying in her bedroom some times. And yet her pain looked so different from hers. Everyone had a different way of missing, of suffering. Her mother would seek help in friends. There had been many of them in their house, in the worse times, and she’d got better. Now, whenever she felt sad, she would just look for Charlie and hold her tight.

When Charlie missed Dean, though, she liked being alone. It was happening less often as the days went by. But when it did, she would go to her bedroom and sit on the floor and hold her knees to her chest. She would cry, silently at first, and then, when she couldn’t hold it anymore, she’d start sobbing. She would make questions that would get lost in the air, on the way up to Heaven, and she’d never be answered.

_Why him? Why now?_

They had never been a big family, and Dean had spent such a short time with them. Now it was just her and her mother. Sometimes they would fight, and Charlie would sit on her bed, alone in her pain, and she would miss him. There would be no one around, and then the loneliness would hurt her even more. She would miss his hugs, his voice, his comfort.

She’d suffered alone for a long time, and maybe that was what she recognized on Castiel’s eyes. Maybe he had been alone for a long time too.

“How did you meet him?”

Cas looked at her when she finally broke the silence. There was doubt on his eyes, some hesitation too.

“He never told me” she explained, looking down “The only thing he told me was that I should call you Cas”

There was recognition on Castiel’s eyes. His lips trembled quickly, and he looked at her in a caring way. There were flashes of a scene from many years ago. A windy night. A barn. Charlie smiled at Cas, her father’s words echoing in her mind. _He won’t mind._

“I have a few pictures of him” Charlie went on, and got out of bed before Cas could say anything.

She kneeled down by her nightstand and opened the bottom drawer, pulling out a bunch of photos which she kept there. She hurried to sit on the bed again, and then she gave the pictures to Cas.

He looked down and there was Dean hugging Charlie as he held her on his arms. She was wearing a colorful dress and there was a missing tooth in her mouth.

“It was my sixth birthday” she explained as Cas observed the photograph.

Then he moved on to the next one, and there were Dean, his wife and Charlie, in the park, having a picnic that should be similar to the one in her dream. Another one. Dean was sitting on the couch, completely asleep, his head tilted to the side. His nails were painted.

Charlie giggled as she saw the picture.

“I did this to him”

And then Castiel was smiling too, his eyes never leaving the picture. There was a sudden silence in the room, as Cas didn’t advance to the next photo, instead he kept looking at the last one, his eyes lingering over it. _Dean looked so peaceful, so happy. He could never have given him that._

“I look at them sometimes” Charlie said, breaking the silence “But I feel like I’m forgetting some things, so… I want you to tell me about him. Anything at all”

Castiel moved on the bed, suddenly uncomfortable. He looked at her, silently wishing she had asked anything else. She looked back at him, begging for words, her eyes hurting him till he looked down in order to avoid them.

“All you need to know is that he loved you, Charlie” Cas whispered as low as he could “Dean… He was different. He’d do anything for the ones he loved, much more than most people do, or claim to. I’m sure that, if he could, he’d be here now. In the end, this is all that matters, isn’t it?” his voice trailed off as he looked away, avoiding Charlie’s gaze.

_It’s not that I want to leave you and Sam, Cas. But I’ve got a little girl now. If I could, I’d stay. It’s the intention that counts, isn’t it?_

“But I want to know more” she said “I don’t want to know what matters in the end”

Fair enough, Castiel thought. For Charlie, it wasn’t the end, she wanted to now details, stories she’d never heard. For her, everything was just beginning. But, for Cas, it had already ended. He’d lived those scenes, and he’d gone over them many times after it. It had ended. And yet he kept going, the days kept going, time kept going. As if it didn’t matter. As if nothing had happened. 

There was a moment of hesitation. And then he looked at her again.

“I knew your father when he was in the army” Cas remembered what Dean had told him – the truth that had to be hidden, if possible, forever - “He was a brave man, and he had a good heart. And you were probably the one whom he most cared about in the world”

He saw excitement on her eyes, she was finally getting her answers. There was pain on them too, but it was an expected pain. She wanted it - remembering him, not just pretending everything was alright so she could keep going. Sometimes, one needed that.

“There are angels in the army?” she asked, and her voice sounded amused for the first time. On her lips, there was Dean’s smile, but it was easier than his had ever been. It was easier and it had that childish innocence - which Dean had lost when he was still too young. 

“I was watching over the place in which he was in, I had orders to do so” 

“You had to watch over him? You were like his guardian angel or something?”

Cas lingered over that question, suddenly not knowing what to answer. It took a while for him to choose his words right.

“Something like that. Uh, I had to save him in a battle, and I was told to watch over him for a while. Back then I don’t think he liked me a lot” she saw, unexpectedly, Castiel smiling again, and his eyes were not in the present anymore “I gained his trust, eventually” he tilted his head to the side “Then I had to avoid relations with Heaven for some time-”

“Why would you do that?”

And suddenly Cas was back there, in the bedroom, the smile slowly vanished from his face and he thought that maybe he had said too much.

“I mean, you are the good guys. Why would you do that?”

Castiel remembered the confusion on Dean’s eyes when he had explained to him exactly what he was about to explain to his daughter.

“Angels are not quite like this” he said and there was a bit of disappointment on her eyes – just like there had been on Sam’s - “We’re warriors, we follow orders, and it’s not always what we want to do. I’ve always obeyed Heaven, till I started having doubts about a lot of things. Then, I ran away. I learned the world was not so simple as I’d thought it were”

The little of what was left of her smile disappeared completely. She nodded, looking down. No, the world was not simple. She knew that now.

“For many times, I thought I’d done the wrong choice. I felt lost, away from all I knew” Castiel continued “But then I got to really know your father. And he was the best man I’d ever known. Somehow, he made me feel like I was home again. So I think that I did the right thing in the end”

Castiel smiled slightly at her, and then, coming out of nowhere, tears started rolling down his face. The glass on his eyes had been formed quickly and then it’d shattered. He couldn’t tell exactly what had led him to it, but he hadn’t been capable of holding it any longer. Charlie looked at him, startled.

Cas’s crying didn’t make any noise. It was as silent as it was painful to watch. Charlie raised her hand shyly after a moment and put it on his shoulder, and, for some reason, it made the tears speed up, till it came to a point when she realized she was also crying. 

Charlie was quiet too. Cas didn’t know whether she understood what he had said. And he wished that someday she would. He wished that someday he could tell her the whole story. Maybe when she was older he would. Maybe he would tell what her father had really done. What he really meant to him.

It took some time till the tears stopped. Cas wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand, Charlie rubbed her pajamas on her face. Then, after a moment of silence, Cas saw there was still a doubt on her eyes. She hesitated, fiddling with the border of her clothes.

“Can’t you see him?” she asked almost in indignation, a lump started being formed in her throat again “In Heaven?”

Flashes came back to Castiel. He remembered standing beside Dean when his chest had stopped moving, and his heart had silenced. He remembered the sudden cold of that moment, the pain. 

He remembered how Dean had asked him to let him go, how Dean had cried when he remembered Charlie and the anger of his soul when he understood he wasn’t going to be there for her. Cas had took that soul, that troubled soul, that scarred soul. And he had sheltered Dean. He had guided him home at last.

But, after that, he’d never seen him again.

“It’s complicated” he said vaguely, not really wanting to talk about it.

Castiel hardly visited Heaven now, his relationship with the other angels had become a little distant and complicated. Cas knew that he could try to set thing right between them, but he had already made his decision a long time ago. He had chosen Humanity, and now there was almost no point in going back.

All of what Dean had been was on Earth, it was a place where Cas could remember him without disturbing Dean’s deserved rest. Now Castiel helped Sam, mostly. The cool uncle Sammy who had a job that always kept him on the road, uncle Sammy who always brought the coolest gifts for Charlie.

Sam had never stopped hunting; he had finally taken that life entirely as his after Dean was gone. Cas didn’t say anything about it. He wondered that everyone had their way of mourning. He’d always considered that to be Sam’s.

There was a short silence between them. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence like before - when Charlie sought words to break it. Now, it was like a silence shared between two accomplices. It was as though their pain and tears had brought them together in a strange way. Now she understood why her father had so much faith in that one man. The doubts she had about him had turned into trust. She apparently forgot that he was extremely old – or decided it didn’t actually matter – and she thought she knew him. Like Dean had thought one day.

And, for Cas, it was impossible not to love her. She was her father’s daughter. She looked at him with his eyes, and smiled with his smile. She was what Dean had left in the world. He would protect her, like Dean had wanted to. He would always be there for her, for monsters under the bed; for when she grew up and discovered there were other things to be afraid of.

Then the silence was broken by the sound of someone moving in the next room. They heard as someone left the bed, walked and opened the door of the bedroom. Charlie’s heart jumped in her chest as she saw her mother’s face appearing at the doorway. She was ready to stop her from screaming and try explaining who that man was.

But then, as Charlie sought Castiel’s eyes for help, she didn’t find them. She looked around. Her bedroom was empty but for her and her mother - who had now entered it. She adjusted her robe as she approached the bed, and rubbed her eyes, her black hair all disheveled.

“Who were you talking to?” she asked, still sleepy.

Charlie considered, for one moment, that it had all been a dream. But the sensation didn’t last. She knew what she had heard; she couldn’t have made that up.

“No one, mom, myself” she said, trying to sound as calm as she could.

“Why are you awoken in the middle of the night, sweetie?” she sat on the edge of the bed, on the opposite side of where Castiel had been “Did you have another nightmare?”

Charlie nodded, the memory of the shadows coming back to her. The presence of her mother suddenly woke an urgent need inside her. Charlie got close to her and hugged her strongly, her arms around her waist, her face pressed against her body. She stood there, letting all her troubled feelings find shelter and warmth. She hardly noticed when her mom moved to the head of the bed and held her in her arms. Just like Dean had done in that tempestuous night.

In a short time, the bedroom was once again silent; the both of them were in profound sleep. Charlie rested unworried; her face was calm and serene. Her mother protected her from the shadows; and in her dreams, an angel in a trench coat flew high above her. 

And she knew that she was safe.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so mush for reading! I hope you've enjoyed it.
> 
> And, as always, let me know what you think, love reading your comments :)


End file.
